For the first time in two decades, San Diego will have nonstop flights to Miami this summer, thanks to new routes announced Thursday by American Airlines.

With the new daily flights, all hubs in the American Airlines system -- Dallas, Chicago, Miami, New York and Los Angeles -- will have service out of San Diego for a combined total of 25 daily flights. A 150-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft will be used for the new route.

“Miami was San Diego’s largest market without nonstop service,” said Hampton Brown, Director of Air Service for the Airport Authority, which had been lobbying for the nonstop flights. “Since Miami is also an American Airlines hub, it seemed a natural fit for the airline. We’re glad they agree.”

The new service will start June 12 with red-eye flights from San Diego scheduled to depart at 9:45 p.m., arriving in Miami the following day at 5:40 a.m. Flights from Miami will leave each day at 6:50 p.m. and land in San Diego at 8:50 p.m.

The added route makes sense for American given the growing tourism markets in both San Diego and Miami, said the airline's spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan.

“San Diego and Miami are both important markets for tourism, and in both cities there is an opportunity to continue to grow American’s presence," she said. "As we grow Miami, it makes sense to add cities that aren’t served today."

San Diego's leisure and business travel markets should also benefit from the daily nonstop service, according to the San Diego Tourism Authority.

"The service will be beneficial for leisure travelers and meetings/convention attendees who would otherwise have to connect at least once to get to San Diego or bypass the option of including San Diego in their trip due to time and effort to get here," said Brian Said, director of Travel Trade Development for the agency.

The addition of the San Diego-Miami route was a wise business decision for American, but it has less to do with demand for domestic travel than the economic appeal of international tourism, says CBS Travel Editor Peter Greenberg.

"The airlines have looked at San Diego as a low-yield vacation destination and in doing so they make a mistake," said Greenberg. "The key here is not where Americans are traveling but where the foreigners are traveling.

"It's not a matter of all the people in San Diego who want to suddenly to go South Beach but Argentinians and Brazilians who are finished with South Beach and who have already been to L.A. and San Francisco and want to come to San Diego. They're the ones with the money and the ones who travel."